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API Playground

Customer-facing documentation for onboarding, deployment, storage providers, AI providers, and migration planning.

API Playground

Status: PUBLISHED Last updated: 2026-05-04 Applies to: API key holders

What it does

The API Playground lets you explore img-man endpoints in the browser, inspect request shapes, and switch between mock mode and live requests against your running instance.

When to use it

  • You want to understand an endpoint before writing code.
  • You need a fast way to try a request with your own API key.
  • You are debugging auth, request bodies, or query parameters in a self-hosted deployment.

Step-by-step

  1. Open API Playground in the dashboard.
  2. Start in Mock mode if you only want example payloads. Mock mode never sends a real request.
  3. Switch to Live mode when you want to hit your own img-man instance.
  4. Paste an API key into the auth field. The key is sent as a bearer token on live requests.
  5. Pick an endpoint from the left-hand endpoint list. The request builder fills in path params, query params, and sample JSON when they exist.
  6. Click Send and inspect the response body, status code, and latency.

What you can test

  • Asset listing, lookup, upload, and transform URL generation.
  • Folder creation and browsing.
  • Share creation and link inspection.
  • AI routes that are safe to exercise with your current key and provider setup.

Tips & limits

  • Use Mock mode first when you are learning the API surface or demoing it to someone else.
  • Live mode requires a real API key with the matching permission for the selected endpoint.
  • The playground is an exploration tool, not a secrets vault. Avoid pasting long-lived production keys on shared machines.
  • For detailed REST onboarding and copy-paste curl examples, start with api-reference.md.

Troubleshooting

ProblemCauseFix
Live mode returns AUTH_REQUIREDNo API key was entered.Paste a valid API key into the auth field and resend the request.
Live mode returns 403 or a permission errorThe key exists but does not have the permission required by the selected endpoint.Create a narrower or broader key in Settings → API Keys and retry.
The request works in Mock mode but fails in Live modeMock mode uses sample payloads; live mode uses the real server contract and runtime config.Compare the request fields with api-reference.md and your server configuration.
A storage-backed endpoint fails in Live modeSelf-host storage is not configured, or BYOC settings are incomplete.Review configuration.md and byoc.md before retrying upload or transform flows.

Related

Source: customer-docs/api-playground.md